Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

My heart pounded, revved up in an instant to an anxious pace. What was it? What was the next calamity going to be?

“You can’t go to school for the next year.” Francisco smiled, pleased by his joke. “I’m sorry. No matter how much you argue with me, you can’t go to school for the next year. You get to play hooky for the entire sixth grade.”

“Yay!” I said and bumped the table with my knees. I didn’t really know if I was glad not to go to school; but I was glad he had been kidding.

“No. I’m sorry. I won’t change my mind. You have to stay out of school and eat chocolates and go to bullfights. Seriously, we’ll be traveling too much for you to go to school. I can’t promise you a completely free ride. If we stay anywhere long enough, I might arrange to hire a tutor.”

“You mean, we’re going to have servants?” I knew of tutoring only from Dickens novels.

“No,” Francisco laughed. “My God, no. Although it’s so cheap here, who knows? Maybe we could afford a servant or two.” Francisco winked. “Unfortunately, it’s against my political principles. But who knows what we can afford en España? If I could sell one chapter of the book to The New Yorker —well, that’s absurd, they’ll never publish me. But, say Esquire, or Playboy, or Gentleman’s Quarterly. From the sale of one piece we could live for six months. Even the miserable New York Times Magazine that pays so little, even an assignment from them would pay for two months.” Francisco surveyed the store, emptied not only of customers but its rapid countermen. There had been four or five of them. Now only one man stood sleepily by a soup pot, his ladle scraping the sides while he stirred. My father looked in his direction and pronounced, “The Almighty Dollar. The sun never sets on her.” With that, presumably reminded of the check, Father got up to pay.

I stopped him with a question, a question that he had conveniently not raised or answered. “What about Carmelita? Is she going to be with us?”

Francisco returned to his chair. Its feet squealed on the tile floor. Maybe because of the talk about tutors that noise reminded me of the Great Neck elementary school’s cafeteria. Was I glad not to be going there, where, for all my alienation from the other kids, I was a star? I didn’t approve of Uncle Bernie and I had no fun when I was with him. With Bernie there was none of the thrill and laughter of the joyride my father made of life but there was something I could not identify, did not understand, something I both missed and resented. Francisco, still sweating from the espresso, looked at me with wavering, almost pleading eyes. Their insecure light confused me: why was he frightened of me? He had looked scared of me when I showed him his own letter the night before. How could that be? How could my big-voiced, articulate and handsome father fear me?

“Yes,” he answered like a guilty suspect to my question about whether Carmelita was going to live with us. He grabbed the sides of his armless chair and nodded at me as if it were my turn to talk.

“Are you getting married?” I asked.

Francisco nodded. He swallowed. “We are married,” he said softly. “I don’t really believe in marriage. But Carmelita and I filled out a form in Havana — that’s all you have to do there, declare yourself to be married — because she wanted it. I didn’t. I never wanted to get married again. But she’s a good woman and she loves you. She’s not your mother. She’s certainly not the woman your mother was. I loved your mother very very much,” he insisted as if I had contradicted him. He looked away and added, “There will never be another woman like her for me.” He cleared his throat again and said with a tone of finality, “Carmelita can’t replace her.”

I am convinced this extraordinary speech is an accurate memory of mine. To analyze it as a professional would require at least fifty pages of turgid abstractions. Let me shorten it for the general reader by saying that, as a way of explaining a second marriage to a child, it is a disaster.

[Besides, little needs to be added to what I have already written on romanticism in the narcissistic personality. The Hard-Heartedness of Sentimental People, I confess, was largely inspired by my efforts to understand, rather than resent, Francisco Neruda.]

Perhaps my reaction to Francisco’s explanation will seem more mystifying than my fathers speech. I said, “How can she love me? She doesn’t know me.”

For a second Francisco stared without comprehension. Then he laughed. “You’re a Gallego, all right.” He smiled, got up and pulled me from my chair. He hugged me tight, pounded my back, and said in a booming, confident voice. “I better keep my eye on you. After all, Franco is a Gallego too.” He laughed at what I assume was my shocked face and said, “I’m joking. But I have no worries with a son like you. You’re strong enough for both of us.”

“You didn’t answer me,” I said, after he paid the check and told me to button up before we returned to Madrid’s cold.

“About what?” he said. He looked tired. Once the animation of discussing the new book idea dissipated, his cheeks became slack with exhaustion, his eyes dulled by sorrow.

“How could Carmelita love me when she doesn’t even know me?”

He pushed me — not hard, but with detectable mean-spiritedness — toward the door. “That’s enough teasing, Rafe. You know what I meant.”

Within a moment he regretted that he had exposed himself and me to an unpleasant Francisco. We took no more than two steps away from the coffee shop and my father reignited his social personality. He draped an arm around my head in the frigid air, hunched down to keep his mouth nearer to my ears, and tried to sell me on his new wife. “Did I tell you what Carmelita did in Cuba? She’s an Olympic swimmer. I mean, she was on the team, but she won’t be going now, even though she was considered the best one, the one who had a real chance to win a medal for Cuba.”

“Really?” I was excited and amazed. A woman athlete for a stepmother.

“Yes. She was a champion swimmer.”

“Why isn’t she going to the Olympics?”

“Um …” My father appeared distracted. He looked at something across the avenue. I followed his glance. There was a church of modern design, not very large, on the corner opposite. Along a windowless side, neatly painted by hand in black paint were these words: JOSE ANTONIO PRESENTE! Beside them was a cross and the years of José Antonio’s birth and death.

“Why isn’t she going to the Olympics, Dad?” I asked again.

“Uh, to be with us.” He had come to a complete halt to look at the graffiti.

“What does that mean?” I asked about the writing after a few moments of silence.

“I don’t understand it. José Antonio was the founder of the Falange.”

“No,” I complained. “What does presente mean?”

“It means José Antonio is present. He is here.” Francisco removed a brown bound notebook the size of his palm from his coat and a black fountain pen. “He was the head of the Guardia Civil and the Falange, the fascist party.” He flicked his pen in the air. “If I get a contract for this book I’ll have to buy myself a Mont Blanc.”

“Are you writing that down for your book?”

“Yes. I don’t take notes, especially not while interviewing people. And I never, never use a tape recorder. But I wanted to write down the exact address since that’s a detail I’d like to get right.” It turned out later that this graffiti was hardly unique and wasn’t really graffiti since it was officially sanctioned, rather than some sort of extreme-right-wing protest against Franco, a split in the ruling class, which is what my father thought he had detected. The handwritten sign distracted me from learning more about Carmelita’s reason for giving up the gold to be with my father. Although I wouldn’t have needed more of an explanation anyway: who wouldn’t give up their own concerns for my wonderful father?